Very Fellini-esque. I really enjoy the computer art that shows up on Remix, codepo() and your site as well. iReally pushing the envelope – keep it up and you’ll have your own “school” like Dada or Bauhaus.
also,
w3c does not seem to be moving toward a flash solution (with flash being proprietary & non-networked, it can’t) — SMIL is the writing on the wall — what does it say to you?
I resisted using Flash for a long time because I worried that the work would not last. But my fascination with multimedia eventually led me to using it. Flash can seamlessly bundle various media types in ways no other software offers.
I understand what Ted is saying, but as a writer and visual artist who has recently redefined himself as a media artist, and after several gigs as a performance VJ, I am mostly interested in the present – how I can inscribe this or that space with my work. I don’t care anymore how long it lasts.
I remember a Polish artist doing a chalkboard drawing. On an nearby table a stop clock ticked, ticked, ticked. He finished his drawing and stopped the clock at 12 minutes, then quickly erased the work. That was over 20 years ago. My mind is archive enough.
That said, I admire the way that Ted works within the parameters of his chosen medium. He is not confined by those parameters because he pokes at the borders all the time.
Flash is irresistible to me. i’ve only just scratched the surface, but i’m blown away by the possibilities. i need to work with multi-media. i’ve tried in the past to cut out some media in favour of another in an attempt to become more ‘professional’, but it feels like an amputation. it just doesn’t work for me. i’ll use whatever tools feel right for the idea.
Ted’s work is an absolute revelation to me. i literally did not know you could produce images like that until i looked at the code to see why i couldn’t right click/save as. i just think it’s magical.
the Polish artist erasing his work… it depends, i suppose, on whether it’s a performance or not… then again, it seems really important to have transient works too. there’d be no room for life if everything was preserved.
preservation is a consideration
but not really a proper concern for a working artist — others, after the artist, will worry about conservation & preservation if 1) there is anything left to save, and 2) there is something worth saving
the reasons i gave you for my continued reluctance to work with flash did not mention preservation — i said ‘proprietary & anti-network’ — i will soften ‘anti-network’ now by saying ‘non-network’ — i am not wrong
flash is mcp (from ‘tron’) — master control program — and that stuff went out in the 1970′s with the advent of microprocessors — intelligent terminals and peripherals — distributed control = network
re your u-tube: hypertext & xml — xml is the networked future of the net — think about this: are you interested in how art can be trucked onto and around the net (xml) or how the (still new and little understood) function of the net can inform the production of art — your answer is profoundly important to you as an artist
when i said ‘there’d be no room for life if everything was preserved,’ i was thinking more of the material world rather than the virtual. i was thinking of something i read of Randy’s where he talked about burning his old work (photos/negs?), and also of how i’ve lost/destroyed work of my own – through carelessness mainly but sometimes a conscious decision – and i’ve often wondered if i should’ve valued the work more and preserved it – by which i mean stored it. but if you store too much you run out of room to move and develop. so i waver between the archive of my mind, a physical archive and a digital one.
from where i am, preservation is a proper concern of a working artist. i’m not talking about institutional preservation or preserving for posterity – i agree, leave that to others – but preservation of the creative self – creative self-preservation. sometimes it feels as if i’ve done nothing (or very little), i’m just starting out, and that’s not true, apart from on the net, but what have i got to show? it would seem not much – hardly anything published, nothing broadcast, not much screened, not much exhibited or performed… so it seems like very little, like i’ve failed, yet i do have a body of work behind me.
self-belief is vital to any artist, and for me that means i have to value the work i do and recognise that some of it deserves preserving, if only for myself, as a record of me, and as a personal resource that i can draw on – and remix!
in the past it’s been a struggle to maintain confidence (still is). i have to resist the urge to discard and dismember my creativity. but i also recognise that it’s the future work that’s important, not the past, and one has to be free to move on, so sometimes it’s ok to discard, mislay, destroy. we will always have our mental archives (…unless and until we lose those too, as did my late grandma and now my dad – ok, now i’m getting morbid…).
so to flash – ‘proprietary’, ‘non-network’, ‘master control program’ – i probably shouldn’t argue with any of that. well, i can clearly see it’s proprietary and i think i see what you mean by non-network. mcp? hmmm… well, i’ll have to think about that. there’s lots i’m still trying to get my head around.
am i ‘interested in how art can be trucked onto and around the net (xml) or how the (still new and little understood) function of the net can inform the production of art’? i don’t know yet. do i need to decide now, is time running out? can’t i explore more? are these mutually exclusive positions anyway?
your comments have been enlightening, in that they’ve prompted me to go off and look deeper into these issues. thanks /t.
haven’t seen a lot of your work — here and at remix — but i do like what i’ve seen thus far — i think you do good work — wonderfully inventive — for what if anything that might be worth to you
my questions were badly framed — haste — and ‘winging it’ here in a comment box — i mean only that all artists eventually must get past the medium and techniques demanded by same to achieve ‘art’ — sometimes referred to as ‘transcending the medium’ — and, my q.s are rhetorical — you can safely ignore them and/or anything else i post :)
re: mcp — if you know the story (tron) the mcp was as a dictator — taking all resources for itself and enslaving the other ‘users’ (programs) — flash is a bit like mcp in that it carries all resources within itself and overrides the other programs — it effectively denies the intelligence of the client (and user) — the statement it makes is “i’m the designer and i know better than you how you should be receiving this” — of course, i disagree
annoying arrogance aside, the amazing possibility to create an infinite (practically) variety of art on the network by exploiting user resources (systems, setup, and preferences) is denied — the opportunity to fully engage users in a dynamic production of art (beyond simple point and click ‘hypertext’) is lost — flash is mcp-like ‘father knows best’ thinking, non-networking
i do enjoy your work, cXs, and yours and Randy’s thoughts on subjects touched on here and at remix
i see what you mean about the flash dictator. i was at trAce’s last incubation symposium a couple of years ago and i remember Ted Nelson being scathing about adobe’s pdf too. but wouldn’t it be possible to use flash for discrete elements, which can’t be produced by other media tools, within a networked system? or is this an oxymoron, like a democratic dictator? or can SMIL really do anything that flash can do?
i’ve seen lots of works that use flash and director which allow for user input and utilize the net to gather and modify material … but so much of the new media work i see uses flash for the sake of using flash, like little adverts for macromedia … as an artist, this is what i feel must be transcended – the using of a tool because the tool exists, or because it’s easy, like so much of the facile work done with image-editing software … as a photographer who spent hours in the darkroom manipulating a single image, i am particularly bored with digitial imagery where the ‘tool’ is obvious … also, in the past couple of years i’ve seen endless streams of digital animations and layered videos that don’t even come close to being as expressive as the psychedelic light shows i experienced back in the 60′s … but now i’m rambling
right,
flash and acrobat (pdf) have their place — they are very good at doing what they do — but as artist’s tools… hmm, they are maybe kind of limited…
discrete elements? would need an example here — offhand, i don’t think there is anything that could be done with flash and no other system, tho, easier(?) better(?) — sometimes yes and sometimes no (is a guess) — you are correct, i think, that there could very well be circumstances where flash might be a ‘benevolent dictator’, and perfectly suited to a given task — as i read it, SMIL is not yet as multimedia capable as flash — then, too, SMIL is not flash — it does things in a completely different (networked(!)) way, so any direct comparison is going to be difficult
i learned recently that ‘actionscript’ is now based on ecmascript — cool! this is really good news because it means that time invested in coding for flash will be transferrable beyond flash — (this is a solution to another of my objections to flash — that knowledge could end up being non-transferrable, so, lost — time wasted)
certainly the work of your fellow islander, jim andrews, must qualify as some pretty amazing director works — and you might know, randy, that i’ve long thought of macromedia’s director as a kind of big brother of flash (much to the annoyance of jim :)
what gets me down sometimes is that there’s so much technically brilliant – i mean highly skilled but also very imaginative – commercial art done with flash, photoshop, illustrator, etc. that it seems to swamp everything else. the danger is it sets the tone, sets the benchmark because they come up with so many great ideas which can be very seductive. sometimes i think, i can’t compete with that, what’s the point?
the point is there’s no competition, not on a deeper level – and why let the commercial world have it all their own way?
/t – discrete elements? i don’t know, but a .swf file is just another media object like any other, isn’t it? … i’m straying out of my depth here… better shut up and go to bed.
a flash file is a complex file –
containing control codes plus a variety of simple files — think of it as special training for your browser, or perhaps a tumor :)
yes /t. i well remember when jim left webartery because it didn’t properly promote webart, and the terrible arguments between jim and alan s. and mez … i just sat back and shook my head thinking about the old arguments between the formalists and everyone else in the art world … i am thinking now that christine should not worry about being out of her depth or about the commercial art world because that kind of worrying tends to paralyze an artist … just create work
[...] There’s a wonderful wealth of material on the site and many ways to contribute. One of my favourite elements of the project is the Female Icons Impersonator. Go to the Flickr page and add your own. I found it such fun, I animated mine: used to be big [...]
22 Comments
Very Fellini-esque. I really enjoy the computer art that shows up on Remix, codepo() and your site as well. iReally pushing the envelope – keep it up and you’ll have your own “school” like Dada or Bauhaus.
cXs,
i’m not a flash fan, but this really is a good piece — transcends the medium
thanks for the links — have linked you at mo’po
/t.
thanks phosgene. Fellini, one of my favourite film-makers. 8 and a half:
thanks /t
not a flash fan, how so?
cXs
proprietary
&
anti-network
not my interests, but that’s not to say i can’t enjoy the things others do with it!
/t.
also,
w3c does not seem to be moving toward a flash solution (with flash being proprietary & non-networked, it can’t) — SMIL is the writing on the wall — what does it say to you?
/t.
ah ha! i hadn’t heard of SMIL before. i’ve just been reading about it – very, very interesting.
:-)
cXs
i should have
left this earlier…
general overview at w3c:
http://www.w3.org/AudioVideo
and on this page lots of links to current specs, proposals, examples…
/t.
thanks /t
cXs
I resisted using Flash for a long time because I worried that the work would not last. But my fascination with multimedia eventually led me to using it. Flash can seamlessly bundle various media types in ways no other software offers.
I understand what Ted is saying, but as a writer and visual artist who has recently redefined himself as a media artist, and after several gigs as a performance VJ, I am mostly interested in the present – how I can inscribe this or that space with my work. I don’t care anymore how long it lasts.
I remember a Polish artist doing a chalkboard drawing. On an nearby table a stop clock ticked, ticked, ticked. He finished his drawing and stopped the clock at 12 minutes, then quickly erased the work. That was over 20 years ago. My mind is archive enough.
That said, I admire the way that Ted works within the parameters of his chosen medium. He is not confined by those parameters because he pokes at the borders all the time.
>:r
Flash is irresistible to me. i’ve only just scratched the surface, but i’m blown away by the possibilities. i need to work with multi-media. i’ve tried in the past to cut out some media in favour of another in an attempt to become more ‘professional’, but it feels like an amputation. it just doesn’t work for me. i’ll use whatever tools feel right for the idea.
Ted’s work is an absolute revelation to me. i literally did not know you could produce images like that until i looked at the code to see why i couldn’t right click/save as. i just think it’s magical.
the Polish artist erasing his work… it depends, i suppose, on whether it’s a performance or not… then again, it seems really important to have transient works too. there’d be no room for life if everything was preserved.
preservation is a consideration
but not really a proper concern for a working artist — others, after the artist, will worry about conservation & preservation if 1) there is anything left to save, and 2) there is something worth saving
the reasons i gave you for my continued reluctance to work with flash did not mention preservation — i said ‘proprietary & anti-network’ — i will soften ‘anti-network’ now by saying ‘non-network’ — i am not wrong
flash is mcp (from ‘tron’) — master control program — and that stuff went out in the 1970′s with the advent of microprocessors — intelligent terminals and peripherals — distributed control = network
re your u-tube: hypertext & xml — xml is the networked future of the net — think about this: are you interested in how art can be trucked onto and around the net (xml) or how the (still new and little understood) function of the net can inform the production of art — your answer is profoundly important to you as an artist
/t.
when i said ‘there’d be no room for life if everything was preserved,’ i was thinking more of the material world rather than the virtual. i was thinking of something i read of Randy’s where he talked about burning his old work (photos/negs?), and also of how i’ve lost/destroyed work of my own – through carelessness mainly but sometimes a conscious decision – and i’ve often wondered if i should’ve valued the work more and preserved it – by which i mean stored it. but if you store too much you run out of room to move and develop. so i waver between the archive of my mind, a physical archive and a digital one.
from where i am, preservation is a proper concern of a working artist. i’m not talking about institutional preservation or preserving for posterity – i agree, leave that to others – but preservation of the creative self – creative self-preservation. sometimes it feels as if i’ve done nothing (or very little), i’m just starting out, and that’s not true, apart from on the net, but what have i got to show? it would seem not much – hardly anything published, nothing broadcast, not much screened, not much exhibited or performed… so it seems like very little, like i’ve failed, yet i do have a body of work behind me.
self-belief is vital to any artist, and for me that means i have to value the work i do and recognise that some of it deserves preserving, if only for myself, as a record of me, and as a personal resource that i can draw on – and remix!
in the past it’s been a struggle to maintain confidence (still is). i have to resist the urge to discard and dismember my creativity. but i also recognise that it’s the future work that’s important, not the past, and one has to be free to move on, so sometimes it’s ok to discard, mislay, destroy. we will always have our mental archives (…unless and until we lose those too, as did my late grandma and now my dad – ok, now i’m getting morbid…).
so to flash – ‘proprietary’, ‘non-network’, ‘master control program’ – i probably shouldn’t argue with any of that. well, i can clearly see it’s proprietary and i think i see what you mean by non-network. mcp? hmmm… well, i’ll have to think about that. there’s lots i’m still trying to get my head around.
am i ‘interested in how art can be trucked onto and around the net (xml) or how the (still new and little understood) function of the net can inform the production of art’? i don’t know yet. do i need to decide now, is time running out? can’t i explore more? are these mutually exclusive positions anyway?
your comments have been enlightening, in that they’ve prompted me to go off and look deeper into these issues. thanks /t.
cXs
cXs,
haven’t seen a lot of your work — here and at remix — but i do like what i’ve seen thus far — i think you do good work — wonderfully inventive — for what if anything that might be worth to you
my questions were badly framed — haste — and ‘winging it’ here in a comment box — i mean only that all artists eventually must get past the medium and techniques demanded by same to achieve ‘art’ — sometimes referred to as ‘transcending the medium’ — and, my q.s are rhetorical — you can safely ignore them and/or anything else i post :)
re: mcp — if you know the story (tron) the mcp was as a dictator — taking all resources for itself and enslaving the other ‘users’ (programs) — flash is a bit like mcp in that it carries all resources within itself and overrides the other programs — it effectively denies the intelligence of the client (and user) — the statement it makes is “i’m the designer and i know better than you how you should be receiving this” — of course, i disagree
annoying arrogance aside, the amazing possibility to create an infinite (practically) variety of art on the network by exploiting user resources (systems, setup, and preferences) is denied — the opportunity to fully engage users in a dynamic production of art (beyond simple point and click ‘hypertext’) is lost — flash is mcp-like ‘father knows best’ thinking, non-networking
i do enjoy your work, cXs, and yours and Randy’s thoughts on subjects touched on here and at remix
with thanks,
/t.
i see what you mean about the flash dictator. i was at trAce’s last incubation symposium a couple of years ago and i remember Ted Nelson being scathing about adobe’s pdf too. but wouldn’t it be possible to use flash for discrete elements, which can’t be produced by other media tools, within a networked system? or is this an oxymoron, like a democratic dictator? or can SMIL really do anything that flash can do?
thanks for your kind, supportive words too.
cXs
i’ve seen lots of works that use flash and director which allow for user input and utilize the net to gather and modify material … but so much of the new media work i see uses flash for the sake of using flash, like little adverts for macromedia … as an artist, this is what i feel must be transcended – the using of a tool because the tool exists, or because it’s easy, like so much of the facile work done with image-editing software … as a photographer who spent hours in the darkroom manipulating a single image, i am particularly bored with digitial imagery where the ‘tool’ is obvious … also, in the past couple of years i’ve seen endless streams of digital animations and layered videos that don’t even come close to being as expressive as the psychedelic light shows i experienced back in the 60′s … but now i’m rambling
>:r
right,
flash and acrobat (pdf) have their place — they are very good at doing what they do — but as artist’s tools… hmm, they are maybe kind of limited…
discrete elements? would need an example here — offhand, i don’t think there is anything that could be done with flash and no other system, tho, easier(?) better(?) — sometimes yes and sometimes no (is a guess) — you are correct, i think, that there could very well be circumstances where flash might be a ‘benevolent dictator’, and perfectly suited to a given task — as i read it, SMIL is not yet as multimedia capable as flash — then, too, SMIL is not flash — it does things in a completely different (networked(!)) way, so any direct comparison is going to be difficult
i learned recently that ‘actionscript’ is now based on ecmascript — cool! this is really good news because it means that time invested in coding for flash will be transferrable beyond flash — (this is a solution to another of my objections to flash — that knowledge could end up being non-transferrable, so, lost — time wasted)
/t.
randy,
certainly the work of your fellow islander, jim andrews, must qualify as some pretty amazing director works — and you might know, randy, that i’ve long thought of macromedia’s director as a kind of big brother of flash (much to the annoyance of jim :)
/t.
what gets me down sometimes is that there’s so much technically brilliant – i mean highly skilled but also very imaginative – commercial art done with flash, photoshop, illustrator, etc. that it seems to swamp everything else. the danger is it sets the tone, sets the benchmark because they come up with so many great ideas which can be very seductive. sometimes i think, i can’t compete with that, what’s the point?
the point is there’s no competition, not on a deeper level – and why let the commercial world have it all their own way?
/t – discrete elements? i don’t know, but a .swf file is just another media object like any other, isn’t it? … i’m straying out of my depth here… better shut up and go to bed.
cXs
a flash file is a complex file –
containing control codes plus a variety of simple files — think of it as special training for your browser, or perhaps a tumor :)
/t.
yes /t. i well remember when jim left webartery because it didn’t properly promote webart, and the terrible arguments between jim and alan s. and mez … i just sat back and shook my head thinking about the old arguments between the formalists and everyone else in the art world … i am thinking now that christine should not worry about being out of her depth or about the commercial art world because that kind of worrying tends to paralyze an artist … just create work
>:r
yes randy
the main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing at all times
and the main thing is to create
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[...] There’s a wonderful wealth of material on the site and many ways to contribute. One of my favourite elements of the project is the Female Icons Impersonator. Go to the Flickr page and add your own. I found it such fun, I animated mine: used to be big [...]